New practice piece – Watercolour

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‘Mare and foal, Perth fly fishing lake, Drakensberg’

Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolour paper – 140lbs Cold Pressed/NOT – Grain Fin

12 x 9″

From my own reference photo.

I am trying to do various types of studies at the moment, to practice light on water and light on the ground. I think I achieved that with this little piece – it’s very difficult to restrain yourself from overpainting and overworking the surface when you are using watercolours, after working in the abstract using acrylics and heavy texture for such a long time as I have been doing.  I’ve deliberately left out a lot of detail on this piece (of the horse and baby) but if I painted this on a canvas, I would do much more work on it.

Better paper and paints

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“Woodland and ferns – from my own photo taken in Tyrrel’s Wood, August 2015″

12″ x 9”

140lb ‘The Langton’ NOT (Cold Pressed) Grain Fin watercolour paper.

Definitely easier process (for me) painting on a block of good weight watercolour paper. The paints are still not the finest you can get but they were the best I could afford and I’m liking the results.  There’s a lot to learn  – watercolour is such a unique animal but lovely to play about with all the layers.  I’m very nervous of overworking a painting and that can result in an ‘unfinished’ almost sloppy look … I’m going for impression at the end of the day.  If you have any hints or tips, that would really make my day!

 

More fiddlin’ about

I like working with watercolours and acrylics, in the abstract at least. So here’s a few doodles from this week.  Promise to get better materials for the next attempts and take the pics in good light (I’m lazy, it’s Sunday and it’s not like I’m actually going to sell any of these)

 

Abstract people Acrylic and watercolour abstract 1 Woman

All 12″ x 9″, acrylics and watercolours on 300gsm acid free watercolour paper.